In order to craft your Save the Dates exactly as you envision them, you may want to consider working with a professional graphic designer to give you the exact artistic look and feel that you have in mind. While traditional templates and pre-existing designs will work for most purposes, working with a professional artist to craft a custom design that will truly set your save the dates apart.

The first step is to find a professional designer or artist to work with – in fact, you don’t have to find an artist that specializes in save the dates, as long as he or she is able to produce high quality designs that can easily translate into a printed product, working with a professional printer. To start, you may want to ask you friends for recommendations on local designers and artists; chances are that your social network has a few creative artists in it already, even if you don’t know them. Once you have found an artist you believe you can work with, schedule an appointment where you can discuss what you envision for your particular design, as well as the medium you want it printed on. In most circumstances, the artist should be able to provide custom art to apply on nearly any format – for example, if you are printing on custom wine bottles, then your artist can provide an electronic label to the company, so that you can get exactly the look you have in mind. In many cases, the printers will also have their own in-house design team, so you can consider working with the company directly, or, at least, inquiring into the services they may offer.

Once you select an artist to begin creating the work, you should establish guidelines include your budget, time line and process – most people have a rough estimate of their budget but have fixed deadlines for submitting the save the dates for creations. As a result, you’ll want to ensure that the artists fully understands not only the date of the event, but also the lead time that the printer will near in order to create and deliver the items well in advance (so that you have time to sort and mail them out according to your own deadline.) Because of this, you’ll want to consult with an artist well in advance of your own internal deadline, so that you have time to make revisions and work through a creative process to get exactly what you have in mind. Specialty printing (such as wine labels or golf balls) can take weeks or, in some cases, months in order to complete on time. As a result, you’ll want to focus on getting the process started as early as possible.

Have the artist you select provide several examples of styles for your review, so that you can give feedback during the process and end up with the right finished product. You’ll find the collaborating with an artist means that your vision can come to life with better production quality and can ensure that your save the dates are of the highest possible quality.